Thursday, 4 August 2011

Canvas is a fascinating and versatile fabric; attractive, durable and lasting and we want to praise it in this short blog.

It has been used for centuries; for sailing ships that explored the world, for tents, shoes and a host of other products, including canvas bags. We at The Clever Baggers use canvas for our extensive range of exciting bags, carrying on a long tradition of using canvas creatively.

A dip in to the History of Art shows how great painters have made their mark by using canvas. Early oil paintings were painted on wood panels, but around the end of the 15th century canvas became more popular as it was cheaper, easier to transport and allowed larger works to be attempted. Renaissance and Venetian artists were pioneers of using canvas as an artistic medium, helped by the fact that sail-canvas in Venice was readily available and of high quality. From then to this day, masterpieces of realism, impressionism, surrealism and modern art have been painted on canvas. Canvas has given us a record of portraits of famous and ordinary people from the past and of beautiful landscapes free of litter from plastic bags.

The world’s largest painting on canvas by a single artist is a fantastic Australian work of “super-realism” by “Ando”. Painted in acrylic (3 tons of it!), the “Big Picture” captures the New South Wales outback in monumental scale, measuring 100 metres by 12 metres at its highest point. The painting includes over one million saltbushes, 20,000 trees, 20,000 small stones, 1,000 large stones, 3,000 clouds, 2,000 buildings, 1,500 hills, 12 sculptures and not one plastic bag in sight!

It’s worth taking a look at www.andoart.com/bigpic.htm, but for those less ambitious, The Clever Baggers have a great range of fabric marker pens and crayons for you to get creative on our canvas bags, to follow in the footsteps of the great artists and to own a unique and personal, not to mention highly functional, work of art.

Friday, 29 July 2011

Supplying an ecologically sound and viable alternative to the unnecessary and wasteful plastic bags given away by retailers is a passion for us all at The Clever Baggers. It is therefore devastating to see in the media that despite many retailers offering good value ‘bag for life’ alternatives, the use of plastic shopping bags is again on the increase.

Governments have promised action and delivered little. In Eire, there is a tax on plastic bags that makes them 16 pence to buy. The Clever Baggers’ best selling long-handled cotton bag is 78p. Even the most numerically challenged mathematician can work out that in five trips our bag would have paid for itself, and still have thousands of trips left in it. This is the beauty of our cotton products – they are not only sustainable, totally and quickly bio-degradable, and lovely to carry, they also make good economic sense.

Add to this the fact that you can personalize your chosen bag with designs, text, artwork of your choice and you have a bag for all seasons. A strong bag that will not split and send your shopping rolling across the car-park at your local supermarket, a beautiful bag that you can take pride in, but this is not a marketing message, this is an ecological plea.

It makes sense for today, and even more sense for tomorrow, for our government to take action on this issue; to begin to turn the ship, to take hold of the tiller and plot a fair course. Naturally, we want people to take a look at our product ranges and what we can offer. But bigger than this is our drive to ban the plastic carrier bag.

I am often bombastic but today I am making a plea to anybody interested in the values that we at The Clever Baggers hold dear. The values of sustainability, of a world view, of the ethos that we should leave only footprints behind. The word is here to be spread and there are wonderful alternatives to the plastic carrier bag.

We implore our government to stop spouting hot air and to take action, and to take it now. We are so used to politicians saying what they think we want to hear whilst small business gets on with the reality of taking steps to make the world a better place. It is simply not acceptable for our government to continue to say to retailers ‘do something about the way you hand out free plastic bags, or we will have to take legislative action’.

They’ve been saying this for at least five years and it’s not working!

Just a few little facts to cogitate on:

• Wales starts charging 5p for plastic bags on 01 October 2011. Excellent news!
• The Clever Baggers have supplied 150,000 cotton bags to the Glastonbury Festival for the past four years. If every bag was used only 20 times instead of a plastic bag, this will have saved 12 million plastic bags
• The Clever Baggers sells over 2m cotton shopping bags a year as well as large quantities of other types of 100% biodegradable bags used as packaging (cotton drawstring bags). Again applying the same 20 times usage, this saves 40m plastic shopping bags per year
Our mission remains not only to ban the plastic bag, but to provide meaningful and creative alternatives to the greater benefit of our country and our wider environment. This is a big mission, but we are prepared for it!

Thursday, 28 July 2011

Here at the Clever Baggers we love the summer and we love kids, although not always together. So why not post your children to their grannies’ house for August and indulge yourself in some of life’s great pleasures?

Come rain or shine, the British Summer comes around at the same time every year, usually on the 26th of October, but for argument’s sake we like to think of it starting in June and going through to September. We here at The Clever Baggers know all about the summer and the best ways to enjoy yourself and friends, but we always, always take a bag with us for our summertime jaunts.

There’s a lot of things you can carry in a bag, and given the kind of choice you have in a Clever Baggers bag, we thought we’d give you some ideas and suggestions; from the standard day-out sort of thing to the major-adventure type of thing.

We hope that our ideas trigger your imagination, and that you will be inspired to get a bag – and the choice of bag is pretty essential after all - and then pack it with the items you need for the experience.

Our list of summer holiday ideas includes indoor and outdoor activities, some sporty and some relaxing. We hope you like our ideas and are able to try one or two of them. If you do try an idea we have suggested, please drop us a line and let us know how it went?

Children. Oh, those blessed gifts that are bestowed upon us when we least expect it. We love them here at the Clever Baggers, but we would never, ever suggest putting a child in a bag. Especially one they haven’t decorated first with their crazy ideas and un-fashionable colour combinations. Really, Suki – brown and green? Together?Love them, we do, and apart from their total lack of colour-sense, they can be fun. We like to see what design-led mayhem they can create on our bags, so we have created a range of bags that we call ‘Plain’ and a number of fabric paints, crayons and pens with which they can create merry havoc. Then they have their own bag for their little children’s toys such as their mobile phone, Nintendo DS, make-up, pogo-stick and replica football shirt.Expect no finer companion on an adventure than a child because you can impress them with your bravery in the face of worms, your athleticism when catching a Frisbee and your general sense of direction when finding the ice-cream van. Those little people love that sort of thing like they love having their own bag to carry home shells, crabs, a handful of sand and the wallet you have spent the last three hours looking for. Bless them.Visits to the beach are a definite area for the use of our delightful bags. Towels, snacks, flippers and snorkels can all be fitted in, and it doesn’t even matter if they are wet – the bags will dry and will get that really cute ‘Loved Look’ that only your favourite bags can ever achieve.

Even when going for a picnic, our bags come into their own. How else do you carry the champagne, the blanket, sandwiches, paper towels, plastic cups and paper plates whilst still holding the hand of your beloved as you approach the cool of a shady bower?Real adventurers can use our adventure bags – hemp bags designed for the great British outdoors and the great British Summer. Up hill or down dale, these bags fulfil every need asked of them. Like the Special Forces, they carry out the mission without a complaint and then they bring everything back again, leaving only their footprints – the way every day out should be.But, what about a romantic tryst? What can be carried in a bag for adults? Maybe a crystal glass in one of our drawstring bags to cushion the delicate flute, maybe a baguette to tear between you, a slice of soft cheese to spread lovingly as you gaze into the distant hills and your hands touch so gently...And back to normality and the classic day out – to the zoo!!! In this bag everybody needs some fizzy pop, the camera and the sort of first aid kit that they use on ER to counter the nasty sting of a lion bite. With the strong handles on a Clever baggers bag, it can also be used as a weapon to stop a rhinoceros in its tracks. Rhinoceros are also known for their short sight and their taste when it comes to design, so even if you waft it in their general direction, they will probably come up to you and ask you just where you got such a beauty from.Great days indeed, when the entire needs of a day can be carried in a tasteful and sturdy bag in one hand. It reminds us all of the halcyon days before rampant consumerism, and the pleasures of a simple stroll, a good view and a light sweat before returning home for the X Factor.Go, fetch me my bags of many colours, we have ideas a plenty within their soft, strong and supple sides...Ever wanted to pack a surprise adventure bag? The sort of bag that you keep hidden from your family and friends right up until the last moment? We do that all the time here at the Clever Baggers. Bags of joy and bags of quality make up a good day for us, and if we get bags of compliments from our lovely and fragrant customers, then we think of that as a good day done.Real adventurers exist in all of us. Real adventures are there to be had, and we want to make sure that you can carry your treats and your gadgets wherever you want to go. It’s why our range is so wide and so well thought through. Not just the colours and the sizes, not just the incredibly funky designs we do, not even the fact that we could supply the British Army with bags for a picnic, but because we really, really love our bags and we want to share them with you.So we try to make your adventures better, fuller, more delightful than ever. We try to give you as wide a range as possible, if your adventure is just going shopping or travelling to one of the wonderful festivals this land has to offer us, we wish you a Great British Summer and a safe and stylish time, whatever adventure you choose.

Friday, 20 May 2011

Captain Ban-Plastic writes – Calling all shoppers! Calling all shoppers! Captain Ban-Plastic here with an important opinion on the current EU debate regarding banning plastic carrier bags. It will come as no surprise to you that I am IN FAVOUR of this because I love the positive alternatives – plastic-bag free countryside, stronger bags that don’t split and the chance to personalise these strong and longer lasting bags to your own taste.

We here at The Clever Baggers can supply one bag, a hundred bags or a million bags of all different sizes and colours and with ANY design on it – from your favourite quote to a picture of your second favourite dog. Big bags, little bags, cotton bags, printed bags – I am Captain Ban-Plastic and we don’t do plastic bags, because they are a scourge on the Nation!

What we do, and what I love, is giving you the chance to have a long-lasting, personalised, strong and soft bag for your shopping, your picnic, your books, your laptop or anything else that you want to carry around.
I say – Ban the Plastic Bag. For all the best reasons, for a greener countryside, for a sustainable way of life and for a greater future for our children, our chickens and our wildlife.

This has been a Captain Ban-Plastic announcement – Have a BanPlastic Day!”

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Hi all you clever baggers, Captain Ban-Plastic here to tell you a little about hemp – one of my favourite eco-friendly materials!

Firstly, the green bit: Hemp is a sustainable, quick growing plant, which replenishes the soil and requires little or no pesticides. (It is the distant cousin of that other hemp plant.) Hemp fabric is durable, strong, and feels great - a fabric that improves with age, and is recyclable. It can be woven, printed, dyed and sewn into a huge variety of designs and it softens and develops even more character with use. I love it – it feels silkier as it gets older and looks like the coolest fabric as it wears over time.

Secondly – the range of bags from Sativa is incredible. They have some clever people who source this remarkable fabric and stitch it together into bags, hold-alls, laptop bags and a host of other useful varieties. All are practical, versatile, and have great details and hidden treats (though we will tell you all about them in the descriptions!)

Thirdly – Let’s not beat around the hemp bush. These bags are great value. Long lasting, green, fashionable, individual and unique - helping you be a modern, thoughtful, fashion and function conscious consumer. And showing that you hate plastic, just like me.

But you don’t have to wear the cape and put your pants on outside your trousers – that’s my job and I like it.
So if you are interested in a bag that is both perfect for travelling on the daily commute or for packing up your dreams and aspirations for the trip of a lifetime, get some hemp in your life and reap the rewards of natures greatest harvest.